Innovative cell-based technologies for bone regeneration (REGENBONE)

Our technology will provide new methods of stimulating bone fracture repair that will shorten healing times and improve quality of care. This is particularly relevant for difficult to heal wounds such as non-union fractures. The development of consistent mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) based therapeutic protocols is a major step that would enable Cell Therapy strategies to be used in routine clinical application. We will combine our well characterised human MSC preparations having known bone-forming potency with two novel systems of cell stimulation: (1) we have developed a novel technology allowing application of an electric field (EF) to control cell migration and enhance osteoblast differentiation; (2) Smith & Nephew plc have developed a low-energy ultrasound system that accelerates healing of bone fractures by 38% in humans. These innovative approaches of stimulating new bone formation from MSCs are proposed for bone regeneration in preclinical and clinical settings